Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

The Denver Post
A bill to require welfare recipients to
take drug tests in order to get benefits died in the state House today
in the face of apparent bipartisan opposition.
House Bill 1046,
sponsored by Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, would have required
anyone applying for benefits under the federally funded Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families program, or TANF, to first pay the $45 cost
of taking a drug test.
Those who passed the drug test would have
been reimbursed by the state and could get TANF benefits. Those who
failed, though, would have been denied reimbursement and any benefits
and would not have been able to reapply for TANF again for a year.
"If you have enough money to buy drugs, why do you need public assistance?"
asked Sonnenberg.
Most Democrats had argued that the bill would treat the poor like criminals and that it made poverty a presumption of guilt.
Democrats
already had added an amendment in committee that required state
lawmakers and statewide elected officials to also take drug tests before
getting their pay and benefits. But House Minority Leader Mark
Ferrandino, D-Denver, wanted to add another amendment to make
politicians who flunk drug tests pay a fine equal to a year's worth of
TANF benefits for an average recipient.
That amendment failed
because the Republican-led House approved another that said drug testing
for politicians would have to occur in October, just before a general
election.
Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado
Springs, said losing an election because of a dirty drug test is "the ultimate penalty."
But Republican support for the bill was not rock-solid.
The
bill was on its second-reading stage in the House, a step typically
marked by a voice vote in the chamber and later followed by a recorded
vote on third reading.
That's not what happened.
When the
voice vote was held and there were "ayes" from the Republican side and
"noes" from the Democratic side, Rep. Brian Delgrosso,
R-Loveland, who was in the chair, announced the bill
had failed, even though it wasn't obvious that one side outweighed the
other.